MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — Middletown's newest deputy chief, Ryan Morgan, was pinned in a ceremony Tuesday evening two weeks to the day after Earl Nelson took the reigns as police chief.
The pair took office following a violent summer that left city council and community leaders scrambling for solutions to the gun violence often happening in public places like parks.
Morgan brings 18 years of Middletown police service to his role and Nelson's 19th anniversary with the department comes in October.
"All I want to do is help people," Nelson said.
Nelson said it was hard to watch the rash of gun violence — including a triple shooting on Sheffield Street that left one dead in May, a shooting that injured two people in Douglas Park in April anda shooting at Smith Park that left two teens injured in July.
"It upsets me because Middletown is a city that's full of great people," he said. "I know there are times that Middletown stays in the news for the wrong reasons, but Middletown is a really good city full of great people with so many things you can do here."
Nelson said the city's May gun-violence town hall was a great way to connect with advocates passionate about reducing shootings in town, but we asked how he could connect with people just trying to live their lives and stay safe.
"We have to go out there and be out there on the streets and talk to them on a personal level," he said.
To do that, Nelson said he wanted the department fully staffed by year's end.
With promotions, the chief said eight of the department's 80 patrol positions would soon be vacant and an aggressive recruitment and retention program would be necessary to fill them and keep them filled.
"We're going to get those vacancies filled, and all those resources that we hire those officers, they're going to be allocated to our patrol division so we can have visual patrol," he said.
An increase in visual patrols, he said, would be the most effective form of community relations and crime suppression.
